ALAN GREENSPAN: Flaw in the model that I perceived as the critical functioning structure that defines how the world works, so to speak.
REP. HENRY WAXMAN: In other words, you found that your view of the world, your ideology, was not right. It was not working.
ALAN GREENSPAN: That it had a—precisely. No, that’s precisely the reason I was shocked, because I’ve been going for forty years or more with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well.
These quotes from the January 12, 2010 interview
of Raj Patel with Amy Goodman, are key to understanding
the flaw that we are not in regarding how we regard seeds,
and all the issues that are now coming into focus this
week. We are banking on the wrong technology.
Investing in it, as we are doing now, is a flaw.
It will lead us down the Crack, and eventually
into touching our Soul.
The earth and the soul are soilmates.
Hear these words. Invest in the bank of compost.
Soil, my friends, is not dirt.
Study this new Torah,
and remember what was intended
when it was said, we are risen from the dust
of the earth.
Date: 4/30/2010 1:32:48 PM ( 14 y ) ... viewed 1429 times
AMY GOODMAN: Raj Patel, the opening pages of your book cite the comments of the former Federal Reserve chair Alan Greenspan. In October 2008, as the financial crisis was in full gear, Greenspan testified before the House Oversight Committee. He was questioned by the committee’s chair, Democratic Congress member Henry Waxman.
REP. HENRY WAXMAN: Dr. Greenspan, you had an ideology, you had a belief, that free, competitive—and this is your statement: “I do have an ideology. My judgment is that free, competitive markets are by far the unrivaled way to organize economies. We’ve tried regulation. None meaningfully worked.” That was your quote.
You had the authority to prevent irresponsible lending practices that led to the subprime mortgage crisis. You were advised to do so by many others. And now our whole economy is paying its price. Do you feel that your ideology pushed you to make decisions that you wish you had not made?
ALAN GREENSPAN: Well, remember that what an ideology is is a conceptual framework with the way people deal with reality. Everyone has one. You have to. To exist, you need an ideology. The question is whether it is accurate or not. And what I’m saying to you is, yes, I’ve found a flaw. I don’t know how significant or permanent it is, but I’ve been very distressed by that fact.
But if I may, may I just finish an answer to the question previously posed?
REP. HENRY WAXMAN: You found a flaw in the reality—
ALAN GREENSPAN: Flaw in the model that I perceived as the critical functioning structure that defines how the world works, so to speak.
REP. HENRY WAXMAN: In other words, you found that your view of the world, your ideology, was not right. It was not working.
ALAN GREENSPAN: That it had a—precisely. No, that’s precisely the reason I was shocked, because I’ve been going for forty years or more with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well.
AMY GOODMAN: Former Federal Reserve head Alan Greenspan being questioned by Henry Waxman. “A flaw.” Raj Patel, you begin your first chapter with—you title it “The Flaw.”
RAJ PATEL: Well, that’s right, because, I mean, that admission is seismic. To have one of the high priests of free market fundamentalism admit that there was something very wrong with this idea of markets everywhere is, I think, a profound revelation. And the trouble is that we’re not very well equipped to think it through and to think about what we might replace free markets everywhere with. And in the book, what I try and do is come up with other ways that have been very successful of valuing the world that don’t involve free markets, because if Alan Greenspan is wrong, and by his own admission he is, then we do need other ways of thinking about valuing the world.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about those other ways, Raj.
RAJ PATEL: Well, what—I mean, the latest Nobel Prize in Economics was won by a woman called Elinor Ostrom for her work on what’s called “the commons.” Now, the commons is a way not only of delineating a set of resources, but also of governing those resources together. And the way that commons are governed can be tremendously successful.
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